Sano Shunt Physiology

Sano Shunt Physiology

Sano Shunt Physiology 512 512 Samuel Payne

Life is in diastole
and all of cardiology
canʼt prepare us for the kick
of an atrium sometimes,
which is to say I miss you,
which is to say so it goes.

A man with no history
of heart failure,
arrives in shock,

ventricles coursing deceit—
cancer the size of a common pill bug
sitting cozy on his heart valve.

I once told you of a surgery for newborns
where blood, engorged in malformed vessels,
shunts blue-red to lungs, and
that wouldnʼt help this man,
but it reminds me of his connective tissue
rotting senseless and beige
like the leftover curry we made
lonely in my fridge for the last time.

All night he spasms and spurts,
pulls off stickers,
pulls out the tube in his penis,
pulls the nurse from other patients,
pools blood in his chest
as his limbs raisin
because he can’t hear
behind the blasts of masked wind
and how do you tell anyone
air tastes this stale near the end?

In time, life pulses back in.
I think of you
as he sits on the side of the bed,
legs dangling
me saying
you donʼt have to lie down
if you feel like drowning.

Sometimes suffocation
beats blue-red and beige,
which is to say I miss you,
which is to say so it goes.

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